Field of the Invention
This invention relates to computer networks and, more particularly, to efficiently distributing data among multiple storage devices.
Description of the Related Art
As computer memory storage and data bandwidth increase, so does the amount and complexity of data that businesses daily manage. Large-scale distributed storage systems, such as data centers, typically run many business operations. A distributed storage system may be coupled to client computers interconnected by one or more networks. If any portion of the distributed storage system has poor performance or becomes unavailable, company operations may be impaired or stopped completely. A distributed storage system therefore is expected to maintain high standards for data availability and high-performance functionality. As used herein, storage disks may be referred to as storage devices as some types of storage technologies do not include disks.
To protect against data loss, storage devices often include error detection and correction mechanisms. Often these mechanisms take the form of error correcting codes, which are generated by the devices and stored within the devices themselves. In addition, distributed storage systems may also utilize decentralized algorithms to distribute data among a collection of storage devices. These algorithms may also include error detection and correction algorithms such as RAID type algorithms (e.g., RAIDS and RAID6). Although data protection is offered, latencies are added for servicing received input/output (I/O) requests from multiple clients. For example, the RAID type algorithms include data reconstruction steps prior to performing steps for the received request. Therefore, performance is reduced until failures are fully recovered.
In view of the above, systems and methods for efficiently distributing data among multiple storage devices are desired.